


In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

by dwindlingdichotomy (Saskam98)



Series: Seasons [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bottom Bucky Barnes, Catholic Bucky Barnes (Past), Explicit Language, Implied Anal Sex, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Blow Jobs, M/M, Post WS Bucky Barnes, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Self-Loathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:12:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8158472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saskam98/pseuds/dwindlingdichotomy
Summary: Spring: In which Steve coaxes a confession from Bucky and promises to love him no matter what





	

“Steve,” Bucky moans, breathless into the weighted air.

His body is stretched, taut as a bowstring, yet at the same time pliant and languid. All hard carved contracted muscle softened with want and surrender.

“Steve,” he breathes again, running his fingers through silky blond hair.

Lifting his head, Steve’s eyes catch Bucky’s in an unguarded moment. He sees the naked desire, the restless, tightly coiled need for something more. And then, as quick as it was there, it’s gone. Bucky has regained himself and shuttered his thoughts away. Steve is left to decide if he wants to chase that fleeting yearning he’s sure he saw or let it go in favor of continuing what he’s started without breaking the mood.

But this is Bucky. Bucky who rarely asks for anything even though he’s still brazen and mouthy and arrogant, even if he’s generally more subdued about it. And Steve is softer now, more intuitive because he’s had to be to love Bucky in the best way he’s able. In the best way Bucky needs now. So he knows, a split second before opening his mouth, that he’s going to risk the closeness and intimacy burning between them to chase the yearning he saw before Bucky closed it off and packed it away. Maybe he’ll even be able to catch it before Bucky’s forced it too deep.

“Buck?” he answers, going still.

Bucky’s lids flutter shut. Steve sighs to himself. The windows to the soul and Bucky has pulled the curtains closed.

He’s losing him. Not physically. Bucky is still panting beneath him, still twitching, body unconsciously begging to get closer to Steve’s, reaching in minute fractions for the pleasure Steve is overjoyed to give him. That is another reason to chase, to follow, to push and pull and tug in degrees until Steve wrangles it out of him. Bucky wants something. Something specific. Steve is compelled to give him anything. He can’t help it. Mostly, he thinks loving and caring for Bucky was programmed into his DNA at conception. Now that he’s _in love_ with him, it serves his own selfish needs to be the person who will deny him nothing, especially when Bucky thinks he can’t ask.

Steve slides up Bucky’s body, maybe a little too deliberately. Pressing flesh together where it normally wouldn’t meet, scraping bone against bone, friction eliciting sharp little gasps, until their breath mingles and he nudges Bucky’s nose with his own.

“Don’t,” he whispers, lips barely brushing Bucky’s with the syllable.

Bucky’s eyes pop open, trepidation and desperation mixing and warring together. Steve’s heart aches.

“Don’t,” he repeats. “Don’t hide from me. Not here. Not when we’re like this.”  
Bucky narrows his eyes and his lips part, but before he can refute Steve’s claim, Steve pulls out his secret weapon.

“Please,” is all he says, and it changes Bucky’s demeanor instantly.

(Internally, Bucky kicks himself, hard. He should’ve been prepared for the plea and the anguished puppy dog blues turned on him now. After all, everyone who knows Steve Rogers knows he fights dirty. It’s ingrained in him.)

Bucky sighs and throws a hand over his eyes. Steve kisses the back of it.

“I love you, y’know. Just in case you forgot.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth quirks. “I think your mouth on my dick is a good reminder.” He peeks out from between his fingers with a brow raised. “But maybe I need more reminding.”

Steve chuckles. Under normal circumstances, he’d be more than happy to comply with the thinly veiled hint. But it’s too late for that. He started a mission and he’s not going to back down now. Besides, he can tell he’s made some headway by the way Bucky is trying to hide behind the hand over his eyes. He thinks he’s being coy and sly, but he’s not fooling anyone except for himself.

They lie there unmoving and silent for another minute or so. 

(Bucky can literally feel the weight of Steve’s gaze boring into him through the useless shield of his hand. He can also feel the beating of Steve’s heart and hear his even breaths. He still searches those things out, rational brain knowing he doesn’t need to anymore; lizard brain instructing his own body’s organs to sync their heartbeats, to time their inhales and exhales perfectly.)

At the same time Bucky drops his hand away, he shifts. Steve scrambles back onto his knees, giving Bucky the space to sit up and prop himself against the bed’s headboard. He stares at Steve intently before casting his gaze down. His metal fingers begin fiddling with the sheets.

“I….” he begins before stopping and pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. The gesture is one of, quite a few if Steve’s honest, Bucky’s mannerisms that drive him crazy. Starts the simmer in his blood, the slow burn of it through his veins, making him needy and a little bit stupid. But this time, Bucky’s not using it to his advantage. It’s completely innocent while he’s trying to sort through his thoughts, deciding what he can safely share and what he thinks he can’t.

Apparently, he doesn’t think he can share anything.

“It’s not important,” he finally says.

Steve’s shoulders slump and he works overtime to keep the disappointment off his face. It’s been a long road for them. Rediscovering trust, friendship. Then discovering love and an insatiable physical desire for each other, thus redefining their dynamic again. It’s not always been easy. Some days are the very antithesis of easy. But as Steve once told Bucky while marveling at how his feelings had transitioned into more than friendship, he never realized it was happening because it just _was_. Like everything about them just is. They are who they are and even though it’s not always easy, Steve wouldn’t change it for anything. Bucky is part of him, carved into him, fused into his own existence. He lives and breathes for the man, even though he knows Bucky doesn’t want that. Maybe it’s not healthy, but Steve is the happiest he’s ever been and that didn’t happen until he got Bucky back. And then it happened in an even greater way when he fell in love with his best friend.

What Bucky wants, Steve wants to give him. What Bucky needs, Steve wants to provide for him. It’s that simple. And the feeling’s mutual.

So he wraps Bucky’s fidgeting metal fingers in his hand and squeezes. 

“Everything about you is important to me, Buck,” he implores. “You know that.”

Bucky continues staring at the sheets.

“And knowing that you feel the same way about me, you’ll understand why I need you to talk to me.”

Silence. Minus the quiet whirring as the plates in his left arm shift and realign, shift and realign. It’s how Steve knows Bucky is still wrapped up in his head. He also knows that Bucky is hoping his stubborn wall of silence will deter Steve from pushing him. But Steve is stubborn too. And maybe just a little bit hurt by Bucky shutting him out. 

(Bucky feels it, and the accompanying guilt.)

He gracelessly thunks his head against the wall, blowing out a pent up breath.

“Jesus, Rogers. You know I left the Catholic behind years ago,” he complains. “Stop with the guilt trip already.”

Steve grins, unrepentant. “Is it working?”

He gets the side eye. “What do you think, you underhanded asshole.”

Bucky eyes the ceiling (hoping it might cave in on them and save him from this agony of baring his soul. A little plaster and drywall crashing down wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to either of them by far. They could take it, survive it pretty much intact, so Bucky doesn’t feel too bad about the collateral damage of some minor physical harm befalling the two of them. Plus, he could always push Steve out of the way and take the brunt of it himself. That would also have the benefit of getting him sympathy points he thinks. He absurdly wonders if maybe the serum gave him latent telekinesis and how difficult it would be to tap into it _right the fuck now_.)

“I’m not unhappy,” he blurts. He looks at Steve pointedly. “With you. With us.”

Steve nods. “Good to know. Although, I haven’t been thinking you were. So I gotta say, I’m really in the dark here, Buck. And I don’t wanna be.”

Bucky continues his visual assessment of Steve. His eyes flare and darken and Steve thinks it’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen. It also tells him whatever Bucky is working up to is about sex. And suddenly he’s the one worrying and slightly panicked.

“What am I doing wrong? I know I haven’t been doing this long so I don’t know all the ins and outs -- oh god. Oh god, that was awful,” he groans, blushing furiously, rolling his eyes.

Bucky laughs at Steve and his unintentional puns of a sexual nature. It breaks the tension. 

(He hates being so fucking dramatic. That’s Steve’s job and he’s damn good at it. Just like everything else about Steve, Bucky can’t help but love that about him too. Speaking of things he loves, that ridiculous full body blush only serves to turn him on more so he scoots close enough to rest their foreheads together. Maybe between the two of them, they could have enough brain cells to stop being so stupid all the time.)

“You are not doing anything wrong. You’d know if you were.”

Bucky had been the one to come into their relationship with the experience necessary to instruct Steve about sex between men. Steve wasn’t a virgin, but he’d never been involved with another man, and well, Bucky had. (More times than he likes to remember, all in the name of trying to burn the relentless desire for one Steven Grant Rogers out of his mind and body, his dreams. It was largely unsuccessful. Which makes him that much hotter for things he shouldn’t want now.)

He presses a wet open mouth kiss to Steve’s lips. “I love you, too. I don’t need anything else but what we have, what we’re doing,” he swears quietly.

Steve leans back so he can see his face, his expression, his eyes. “But you want it,” he realizes out loud. “You want more.”

Bucky burrows his head against Steve’s neck. “Stevie…” he murmurs. 

The tension and frustration are back in him. Steve can feel it in his bunched up shoulders, in the heavy sighs against his neck. He reaches up and, bracketing Bucky’s face in his hands, Steve pulls him back so they can face each other.

“Tell me.”

Bucky’s gaze darts all over Steve’s face. It’s not that he won’t meet Steve’s eyes, it’s that he’s taking all of him in - his lips, his brows, his nose, all his features, and very definitely his eyes. But he doesn’t say anything.

Steve leans forward until his mouth is against Bucky’s ear. “How do you know I won’t want it too?” he asks, his voice low, honeyed, seductive in ways no one would ever believe he could be.

Bucky freezes for a moment and then snaps. Inelegantly but not inarticulately, he rasps, “I want you to fuck me.”

Steve smiles and blows a light stream of air over Bucky’s ear.

“I want you inside of me,” Bucky continues, his voice gravelly and defiant. And now that he’s started he doesn’t seem to be able to stop. “I want to feel you push into me, split me open, pound me so hard I’ll never forget --”

The last words make Steve flinch. He manages to cover it up by tightening his fingers in Bucky’s hair.

“And then fill me so full of your come I can feel it leak out of me and drip down my thighs.”

There’s that crude, mouthy son of a bitch. It makes Steve stop breathing for a couple seconds, his brain momentarily zapped, then he’s choking on air when his lungs involuntarily jump start.

“God, Bucky,” he whimpers. He’s so fucking hard. Harder than he was the night he and Bucky jerked each other off for the first time. The night his body was way ahead of the game, waiting for his idiot head to catch up where Bucky was concerned. It’s been a glorious few months of being in love and lust and learning each other's bodies and what works for them and what doesn’t. But again, Bucky being the experienced one, Steve’s a little unclear as to why he didn’t feel he could be forthcoming with this. “Is that all? Is that what all the,” he gestures vaguely to the room, “is about?”

Bucky jerks back. “Is that all?” he mocks. “Is that _all_? Fuck you, Rogers. You say it like it’s no big fucking deal.”

Steve opens his mouth but Bucky rolls right over him.

“It’s a big fucking deal, Steve. You’ve never been with another man.”

“I’m not a virgin, Bucky.”

“You are with this,” he snaps back. 

“I’ve had my mouth all over your body, including your dick several times,” Steve reminds him. “And your come down my throat,” he tacks on for good measure, maybe (definitely) for a tiny bit of shock value.

“Yeah! You almost threw up the first time too.”

Steve blanches a little, recalling his surprise the first time he let Bucky blow in his mouth. And the subsequent gagging and sputtering. It’s true, not his finest moment proving to the love of his life that he didn’t have a problem with sex between them.

“Practice, Buck. Practice makes perfect. See how good I am at it now?” He throws his arms out in a cheeky shrug of his shoulders.

Lightning quick, Bucky whacks him in the head with a pillow. “Shut the fuck up, punk,” he growls but there’s no heat to his words and Steve suspects he’s trying not to laugh.

They stare fondly at each other until the moment passes.

“Listen,” Steve starts, “I kinda figure this is the next step. I mean, we’ve done everything else.”

Bucky scoffs. “Everything else? Ha! Uh, no, pal. We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.”

Steve feels his stomach flip and his abdomen contracts in the most delicious way. He raises his left brow and grins stupidly. “Really? What else is there?”

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Bucky growls, seeing the obvious curiosity lighting up the shithead’s eyes. “Put a pin in it, sweetheart. We’re not going there right now.”

Oh yeah, Steve’s definitely putting a pin in it. He makes a mental note to look further into ‘everything else’ as soon as he gets the chance. The internet is his friend. So helpful. He continues smirking. Bucky obviously doesn’t find the humor in the situation. HIs expression stony, he’s still refusing to capitulate.

“Buck, I don’t understand. If you want it and I want it….” Perplexed, Steve trails off, not sure what other argument he can present. 

The tension is back, and not the good kind. They don’t seem to be able to get away from it for long. 

Bucky scoots back across the bed and leans against the wall. He pulls his knees up to his chest and Steve feels the physical withdrawal like a bridgeless chasm opening up between them. He watches, worries, as Bucky wraps his arms around his legs and buries his head against his knees. As he tries to shrink into himself. Steve wants to go to him, wants to comfort him, run his fingers through Bucky’s hair. And more than anything, he wants to pull him back from that dark place he knows Bucky is going.

He starts mumbling but Steve is so in tune to Bucky’s voice he doesn’t even need to strain to hear what he’s saying.

“I can’t take that from you. I couldn’t then and I can’t now. I’m just…” His breath hitches and Steve patiently waits until the words come again. “I’m not good. I’ve _never_ been good, wanting you this way. Doing the things I did to try to make it stop. But I’m so selfish. I couldn’t let it go, I couldn’t let it be. So I forced it out of you. Because I’m selfish.” His voice breaks on the last word. He’s so tense and worked up, he’s shaking with the effort of holding himself together.

“And then this.” He shrugs his left shoulder, and Steve knows he means the metal arm and all it symbolizes. “I’m not good, Stevie. I won’t...I won’t infect you. I won’t ruin you like that.” 

Steve’s cheeks are wet with tears. His stomach is churning and it takes everything he has to keep the bile from rising up his throat. He’s aware that some of Bucky’s thinking is left over from the time period they grew up in, but he’s so enraged that it’s only been compounded by what HYDRA did to him; that Bucky truly feels he’s not good enough and he’s selfish for wanting any physical intimacy with Steve, even though they feel so strongly about each other. The idea that _Bucky thinks he’s poison_ causes Steve’s fists to clench with a vicious need to rip something apart. He’d start with Zola and work his way forward through the years until he left every last motherfucker who ever breathed in Bucky’s presence bloodied and mangled and in pieces. And it still wouldn’t be enough to bank the inferno that burns through him on Bucky’s behalf. He feels useless and sick and his heart, _god_ , he almost can’t breathe with how much his heart is hurting. Yet it’s a dust mote drifting carelessly through the air in comparison to how Bucky feels.

Swallowing down his hurt and his hate, Steve finds his voice, hoarse and thick with tears as it is. “Stop it. Stop it, now.”

The shaking stops but Bucky doesn’t raise his head from between his knees.

Steve clears his throat even though he can’t completely erase the emotion clogging his vocal chords. “They can’t take this from us, Bucky. I won’t let them. I won’t let anyone.”

Slowly, he inches closer. Bucky is wound up and on edge and Steve is afraid of spooking him, but he has to be closer. He has to let him know that’s all he wants, is to be as close as he’s allowed. And there’s nothing Bucky can say to make him not want that. “I won’t let you let them either,” he vows, solemn and stern.

He places his hand on the bed in the scant space between Bucky’s thigh and the heel of his foot, not touching him but near enough that Bucky will know it’s there.

“I’m happy, Buck. For the first time in years. Because of you.” The truth of it rings out, clear as crystal. “And fuck you if you think you forced anything out of me. Tell me one goddamn time that’s ever been how it is with us. You helped me, helped me see the best thing I’ve ever had was right in front of me.” 

He pauses, resting his temple against his own drawn up knees, eyes focused on shiny dark hair spilling over pale skin. Hair that Steve can’t keep from constantly tucking behind Bucky’s ear, that curtains them when Bucky rises over him to kiss him breathless. That hides his beautiful face when he’s feeling too vulnerable. 

“It would make me even happier to make love to you, to feel you wrapped around me so tight with nothing else in between us. You will never convince me that that’s a bad thing. Not with you.”

The next few minutes are silent and still, Steve watching Bucky intently. He’ll sit there forever if he has to. But then Bucky slowly disentangles his arm and places his flesh hand on the mattress in front of Steve’s, letting the tips of their fingers brush. He slots his fingers between Steve’s and curls their hands up until their knuckles bump together. It’s not really holding hands, but it’s contact, a physical connection, and Steve will take it.

“Shut up, Rogers, before you make my teeth rot,” Bucky grumbles.

His own huff of laughter takes Steve by surprise but then Bucky turns his head towards Steve. His hair is falling over his face but Steve can still see those piercing eyes staring at him between the strands. He leans forward and places a light kiss above Bucky’s ear.

“Don’t ever be ashamed of who or what you are, Bucky,” he tells him, lips pressed to his head. “I want everything you are, whenever you’re ready to give it to me. And I will spend the rest of my life, kicking your ass if I have to, until you believe that.”

Steve can tell Bucky’s smiling a little from the way his skin and muscles flex against Steve’s mouth. “As if you could,” he hears, making him smile in return. Because that’s their way.

He knows he didn’t win the war tonight. He’s not even sure he won the battle. But Steve realizes the victory is in breaking down Bucky’s walls, one small step at a time. Excising all the dark pieces of shrapnel scattered throughout his mind and heart and replacing them with light and hope and love. And if it gets them no further than they are in this moment, it’s still enough. They’re together and Steve gets to love Bucky. When it comes down to it, that’s all he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not at all how this story was supposed to go. That damn Bucky Barnes hijacked things and wrote his own story. He's not sorry either, the jerk. 
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful, amazing friends who read, provided feedback, confidence boosts, and some really intense hand holding. You guys are the BEST! <33333
> 
> I hope you enjoyed Part 2. Comments are always welcome! Thanks for reading!


End file.
